


the way you're bathed in light

by sameboots



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, F/M, First Kiss, First Time, Jaime makes some terrible choices, then he makes better choices
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-07
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2020-11-26 11:14:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20929292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sameboots/pseuds/sameboots
Summary: Canon Divergence from season 4.--He feels as ifhe’sthe maiden whose virtue is at risk.“I want you,” she murmurs.“You shouldn’t,” he tells her, but he knows he’s weak.He’s always been so weak.He’ll take this too, and add it to his infinite list of sins.





	the way you're bathed in light

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for a prompt on tumblr, barely filled the request. 
> 
> Title is from the Live song 'The Dolphin's Cry'.

Jaime’s not a good man. 

He’s known this since he slit his King’s throat. Possibly he knew before that. Perhaps when he took his sister’s maidenhead. Maybe the first time he let Cersei be cruel to Tyrion and didn’t stop her. 

There have been so many sins in his life, it’s impossible to know if he was ever truly good. 

So, when he wends his way through the maze of The Red Keep, heart thundering in his chest, blood pumping furiously through his veins, he doesn’t know how he could be surprised to find himself at Brienne’s chamber door. 

He knocks. The sound echoes off the stone walls. 

He wonders if everyone knows the purpose of his journey, if the whole of Westeros will know of this transgression, too. 

Brienne opens the door a fraction. She’s bathed in the warmth of candlelight, the fire turning her hair into the finest strands of spun silk. Her eyes widen at the sight of him, but she opens the door anyway. If his heart thundered before, now it gallops at the sight of her in a soft tunic and breeches, stripped of all armor. 

Stripped of the symbols that bind.

“Is something amiss?” she asks.

Her voice jolts him. 

She’s so good. 

He can see it in the softness of her eyes, the gentle confusion and concern there. Of course she believes that the only reason he’s in her room–the only reason he_ could _be in her room–at this hour is because of something dire.

Then again, maybe it is dire. 

He certainly feels like he’s in crisis. 

“Ser Jaime?” She steps closer to him, eyes searching his face. 

He wants to hold up a hand, ward her off. The remnants of a good man still within him whisper, desperately, to stop.

But he’s not a good man. 

He’s never been good _enough_.

He grabs her, and he kisses her. Her mouth firms against his, protesting the invasion of her space, and the shock of the assault.

Unexpectedly, incomprehensibly, she softens against him, a whimper sounding from the back of her throat as she sinks into him. He coaxes her mouth open with his tongue, and she allows him with a measure of hesitance that should stop him in his tracks.

It should.

It doesn’t.

He slips his real hand underneath the fabric of the tunic, stroking the skin just above the top of her breeches. She’s warm. There’s nothing vicious in their embrace, it becomes something gentle, the brush of hands and slow tangling of their tongues.

She tastes like the promise of something better.

She tastes like life itself. 

He pushes the tunic up, exposing her stomach. It’s then that she pulls away, looking at him with the naive surprise of a fawn’s first glimpse of a predator. 

“What?” she asks him, seemingly unable to find the proper words for what she needs to know.

He swallows heavily and thinks this is the moment he can leave her. This is his chance to leave without tarnishing something so pure as her sweet bafflement.

He doesn’t. 

Instead, he says, “I want to lie with you.”

She gasps. 

He grabs, sinking his fingertips into the muscles that tighten against the presumption.

“Say no,” he says. He begs. 

She blinks, her tongue darts out to wet her lips, and he watches as a storm roils in the deep blue of her eyes. 

“What if–” she begins, pauses, her voice barely audible. “What if I say yes?”

“If you say yes,” he says, voice choked with desire and fear, “I will bed you.” He tilts his fingers so that the blunt edges of his fingernails dig into her pale flesh. “I will ruin you.” 

Her mouth trembles.

She’s silent.

He knows she’ll send him away. He loosens his grip, his hand sliding away. She stops him, her hand over his own. He feels the sharp edge of panic slice at him. 

He feels as if _he’s_ the maiden whose virtue is at risk. 

“I want you,” she murmurs. 

“You shouldn’t,” he tells her, but he knows he’s weak. 

He’s always been so weak. 

He’ll take this too, and add it to his infinite list of sins. 

He doesn’t give her a chance to answer. He jerks her even closer and takes her mouth in a searing kiss, too quick, too firm, teeth bumping together harsh and bruising against their lips.

He unclothes her in desperation, baring a nearly shocking expanse of pale flesh. Nearly shocking, because, of course, he’s seen it before. But not like this. Not when he can touch. Not when he can taste. Not when he can draw one of her shell-pink nipples between his teeth and tease it until she gasps and writhes and whimpers.

Her hands scrabble at him, clumsy and fumbling with laces, pushing and pulling leather then linen until finally, it’s just their sweat-slicked bodies sliding together.

He bears her down onto the bed, settling between her powerful thighs. She tenses for only a moment before wrapping her legs around his. He knows he should prepare her more, that he should make it better for her than for him, that he should ensure her pleasure ahead of his own. But he fears he’s so desperate; he needs her so much; he’s wanted her for so long. 

He reaches between them to find her already wet, the heat of her nearly scorching. When he finds her clit at the apex of her cunt, she keens, looking at him with a sort of shock that makes him wonder if she’s ever pleasured herself. 

It’s that thought that pulls him back enough give her something of the pleasure he will feel. He presses his fingers into the welcoming heat of her, setting his thumb against her clit and stroking until she’s all but sobbing into his shoulder with the overwhelming sensations. When she finally clenches around his fingers, her muscles contract, almost fluttering, as if refusing to let him retreat. 

He lifts his head from where he’s sucked blossoming bruises into the milky skin of her collarbone. He waits long enough for her to open her eyes and look at him, dazed, pupils wide. He doesn’t even need to give voice to the question.

She nods. 

He slides into her, choking on the groan that tears from his gut. She’s tight, her whimper on the edge of pain. 

He stills.

He’s patient. 

He may be a terrible man, but he’s good enough to give her a moment to adjust to this new form of invasion.

When her hips finally relax beneath his and her breath returns to almost normal, he moves, shifts more like, rocking them together as easy as a stream flowing over pebbles. It’s only when she moves against him, when her body accepts and then asks for more, that he leads her into a different sort of sparring. It’s a fight as much as when they clash with swords, but one that will result in victory for both if well fought. 

He’s not patient enough that she comes again before he does. But he at least keeps his wits about him enough to spill on her sheets and not within her. 

He’s a monster, but he won’t sire bastards on one who deserves a fate of her choosing. 

She hasn’t fought so hard to be brought low by a terrible man’s seed. 

He rolls off of her and stares at the ceiling. It seems inane now, but he thought if he had her, it would release something in him. It would uncoil the knot of everything he feels when she looks at him like he still has worth. 

–

He sends her off on a horse he provided, in the armor he had made to fit her and only her, with a sword that will create a legacy better than he could dream. 

He tells her goodbye, calls her by her name where anyone can hear. 

He watches as her chin trembles.

  
It reminds him of the way her thighs quivered against his as she came. 

–

He thinks he’ll never see her again. That at least he’ll have the memory of her body moving with his, the singing of his nerve-endings as they moved together. 

But then she’s standing before him, in a tent outside the gates of Riverrun. Her gaze, somehow, still as limpid as ever. 

She makes to hand him her sword, the sword he gave her when he couldn’t give of himself. 

It feels like rejection, and he’s a selfish enough bastard to deny her that power. 

“It’s yours,” he tells her, a vow he cannot speak in any other language. “It will always be yours.”

  
He hopes she knows he means he’s hers, or at least the tatters of whatever virtue is left within him are hers. He wishes she could take those bits and pieces and form a better man, one who could love her openly, who could claim her for his, but give her leave to do as she desired. 

Her chin quivers, and he remembers remembers _remembers_ the way her stomach shook against him when she came.


End file.
